


wishes on the wind

by arteriole



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (it really is a minor character I promise), Alternate Universe - Mythology, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Cancer, M/M, Major Character Injury, Tanabata Festival, minor character illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 15:17:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6381604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arteriole/pseuds/arteriole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p><i>If to burn with love</i><br/>Were the same thing as to die,<br/>Long before now<br/>A thousand times I would have died—<br/>A thousand times over.<br/></p>
</blockquote><br/>Twenty years of wishing.
            </blockquote>





	wishes on the wind

**Author's Note:**

> Okay! Boy, has this fic been an adventure for me! The idea came to me in October, and I started outlining in November, started writing in December, dropped it in January, and finished it just now? It's been a ride, for sure, so I'm so glad to have followed through with it ^^"
> 
> Title is from "Wishes on the Wind" from the musical, Allegiance.

**2001 — a butterfly net**

 

 _Magical_ , his mother promised him.

At seven years old, Iwaizumi Hajime isn’t quite sure how a festival is going to be _magical_ , but then again, his mother is never wrong. Looking out the window at the other cars that pass by, he thinks to reconsider his mother’s earlier declaration, and asks, “How?”

From the passenger seat, Hajime’s mother laughs, and he can see her smile. “I’m going to tell you a story,” she says, “and you’re going to have to listen closely, because all of it is true.”

Hajime nods almost immediately—his mother tells the best stories in the world, especially when she tucks him in at night, speaking softly as she cards her fingers through Hajime’s hair, close enough for him to smell her jasmine perfume.

“All right, then. Many, many years ago,” she begins, “there was a princess named Orihime.”

His mother, Hajime thinks, has always told the best stories. Soft-spoken as she might be, her voice can drown out the sounds of the most violent storm, can keep the nightmares at bay, can stop time itself. And Hajime listens, completely and utterly captivated as she pieces words into a story before him, the story of Princess Orihime, who would sit on the banks of the river of heaven to weave, who had worked so hard to weave the cloths that she had never had the time to fall in love.

 _A princess who has never fallen in love?_ Hajime wants to say, but he keeps silent, not daring to interrupt his mother’s story.

“But then,” she says, as if reading Hajime’s mind, “she met a cow herder from across the river, named Hikoboshi. And as soon as they met, they fell in love.”

But those who are in love, Hajime’s mother explains, can become irresponsible. The princess had been no exception. And when she neglected her weaving, the emperor had separated her from Hikoboshi in his fury. Only once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh month, could Orihime be reunited with her herder.

“That’s it?” Hajime asks, frowning. “They never get to _really_ be together again?”

“That’s what the legend says,” his father tells him from the driver’s seat, and the seven-year-old’s frown deepens.

“But is it _true?_ ” Hajime demands, making a great deal of crossing his arms over his seatbelt for his mother to see.

His mother quiets for a moment, smile vanishing from her face as she lapses into an expression far more pensive—one that Hajime never considers thinking twice about, until he’s almost twenty years older and it might be too late. “I believe,” she says carefully, slowly, like she’s telling him something sacred, “that Orihime and Hikoboshi loved each other so much that they would find a way to be together, even if it took a thousand lifetimes.”

“Don’t you think that they could find each other sooner?” Hajime asks, still turning over the words _a thousand lifetimes_ in his mind. To a seven-year-old, _a thousand_ might as as well be _a million_ , or even _infinity_.

A funny look crosses his mother’s face, then, one that Hajime can’t decipher. After a moment, she says, “I don’t know, Hajime.” She laughs, then, the sound soft and light and airy and incomplete, and then she adds, “Maybe if the stars are aligned.”

For the rest of the car ride, Hajime remains silent, his parents’ adult conversation little more than background noise. At some point, he drifts off, the steady rhythm of car tires on a road enough to coax him into sleep.

When they get to the festival, though, and he catches sight of the lanterns, the decorations, the people, the wishes fluttering in the breeze, he can’t help but think that maybe his mother was right when she called Tanabata _magical_.

His mother laughs, ruffles his hair, and hands him a slip to write his own wish on. Well, he thinks, his old net _did_ tear, and he watches when his mother ties it to a branch for him, watches as it twirls and twists in the wind just like all the other wishes.

 

 

 

 

 

**2008 — to win a game, this year**

 

 _Captain_.

Hajime wears the title proudly when it is given to him for his final year at Kitagawa Daiichi, and, he thinks, with his team behind him, he’s ready to face anything that comes at them this year.

And then Kageyama Tobio joins the volleyball club.

The first-year is a powerhouse among middle school players, the embodiment of raw talent. Even after one practice, Hajime knows that what Kageyama has is uncommonly—almost unnaturally—good. Even so, he has a lot to work on. He’s painfully awkward, for start. It’s not something that Hajime can really fault him for, he just… doesn’t really _understand_ , but it doesn’t help that the other new players in his year are making a conscious effort to avoid talking to him or even _standing near him_.

Kageyama sets a toss, too high, out of Kunimi’s reach—and the spiker responds with a look of such derision that even Hajime is taken aback.

...so the team isn’t quite unified yet. But—that’s what Hajime is for. He’s not the captain for nothing, after all. And maybe it’s a stupid thought, maybe it’s only out of baseless pride in his own team, but Hajime thinks that _maybe_ , if Kageyama works hard enough—if Hajime can help him enough—he’ll be able to surpass Shiratorizawa Academy’s Oikawa Tooru as the best setter in the prefecture.

So when Kageyama’s trying to carry an armful of volleyballs during clean-up and drops one, Hajime seizes his opportunity before his kouhai drops all of them in an attempt to catch the escaped one.

“I’ve got it,” he says, picking it up from the gym floor.

The kid _freezes_ , and Hajime starts to wonder if he’s made a mistake. The first year setter makes an odd, awkward movement, jerking like he’s trying to bow to his senpai but can’t given the armful of volleyballs, and he all but shouts, “ _Thank you! Iwaizumi-senpai!_ ”

It really _is_ awkward, and, feeling Kindaichi and Kunimi’s watchful gaze, Hajime suddenly understands why the other first-years have been avoiding Kageyama. It’s not easy, per se, to talk to someone who shouts so much and glares so intensely at anyone who tries to make conversation. Certainly, it would be easier to ignore him. Avoid him. Alienate him from everyone else on the team. It’s what the first years are already doing.

But, he thinks, this is when he’s going to put an end to that. They’re going to have to learn how to be a team, at least as long as Hajime is captain. Volleyball isn’t something that can be won by an individual player. _There’s a reason that six people stand on the court together_ , he tells himself.

So he offers Kageyama as casual of a grin that he can, clapping him firmly but not unkindly on the shoulder, and says, “Hey, drop that ‘senpai.’ It’s just Iwaizumi. We _are_ teammates, aren’t we?”

Kageyama looks a little bit like he’s about to shout again, but a faint, wobbly smile has appeared, and Hajime knows, he _knows_ , that he’s done the right thing, and everything with the team is going to work out just fine.

 

 

 

 

 

**2009 — to not let my team down**

 

The shrill sound of the referee’s whistle rings out across the court, and all at once, the heaviness of three years’ worth of matches ( _three years’ worth of losses_ , his brain helpfully reminds) crashes down on Hajime, and it feels like he can’t breathe. The tears fall relentlessly and Hajime ducks his head, turning away from his team. _They shouldn’t see their captain like this,_ he thinks. A captain shouldn’t even be like this in the first place, he tells himself; a captain needs to be composed, a captain needs to be strong, a captain needs to take his loss with grace, a captain is able to lead his team to victory, so just what kind of _captain_ , exactly, is Hajime?

“Iwaizumi-san.” Kageyama’s voice, tentative and wary, breaks through Hajime’s thoughts. He doesn’t look up, still scrubbing furiously at his tears. “Coach says we need to leave soon.”

“Right,” Hajime says. “Right, of course. I’ll be there in a minute, Kageyama.”

He says it with a finality, with all the desperation of a _go, please_ —and Hajime hates himself for even falling to this level.

His breath levels and he wipes the tears from his face one last time before turning back to face his team, forcing a smile that he’s sure isn’t fooling anyone. “You all fought well. Thank you—thank you for these three years,” he says, bowing to them and keeping his head down so that maybe they won’t be able to see that the tears have begun to fall again.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t beat Oikawa-san,” Kageyama says, later, when they leave Kitagawa Daiichi’s gym, Hajime for the last time.

“It’s not your fault,” Hajime says, and he means it. The implicit _because it’s mine_ is not voiced. “Besides,” he adds, straightening up a bit, “there’s still time to get our revenge, huh?”

“Yeah,” Kageyama says, “there is.” He says it like a promise, and it makes Hajime’s heart clench a little bit. _What have I ever done to deserve this team?_ he wonders, and he smiles, this time for real. Clapping his hand on Kageyama’s shoulder— _just like on that first day,_ Hajime thinks—he says, “You’re going to do great.”

He has said it before, and he’ll say it again now, but Kageyama—he really is going to do great things. Hajime is sure of it. Hell, it’s thanks to Kageyama alone that they had been able to reach a point where they could even _hope_ to face Shiratorizawa.

That night, he lays awake, thinking about how at the end of the second set, at Shiratorizawa’s match point, he had made eye contact with Oikawa only moments before he faltered in his last toss to Ushiwaka.

In that instant, when their eyes had met—there was this _feeling_ , this sort of deja vu, like… almost like they knew each other. As if they had met before, despite the fact that that was a completely ridiculous idea, because over the past three years, Hajime had never gotten to face Oikawa in a match before today, let alone speak to him.

Hajime wonders if—if when Oikawa had faltered, if even for a moment, if it had been because he’d felt it, too.

 

 

 

 

 

**2010 — to take my senpai to nationals**

 

It’s late at night and Hajime’s walking to his bathroom to brush his teeth when his right knee buckles, and he find himself on the floor with a waning pain in his leg that is more phantom than anything else. It’s a strange sensation—he’s never had a sports injury, not _really_ , unless he were to count a broken arm from little league baseball when he was nine.

This, he thinks, is what a real injury would feel like, although the pain fades to a dull throb in his knee. By the time he’s finished brushing his teeth, the feeling is gone completely, leaving Hajime entirely confused.

 _But_ , he tells himself, as he lies in bed, he should just be grateful that he’s not really injured. He’s probably just tired, after all, maybe tripped over his own feet a bit. He’s almost entirely certain that it was nothing, because he feels completely normal after several experimental exercises, and he relaxes at the thought.

He can’t imagine getting injured mid-season, letting his team down like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2011 — to go to nationals this year, for real this time**

 

Really, Hajime shouldn’t be surprised when Kageyama walks into Aoba Johsai’s gymnasium on the first day of his third year. In some ways, it feels like like a fix-it reenactment of the first day of his third year at Kitagawa Daiichi; unlike last time, Kageyama enters with Kunimi and Kindaichi by his side. They really _are_ teammates now, Hajime observes. To think that three years ago, Kunimi and Kindaichi had been avoiding Kageyama like the plague seems unimaginable now, and though Kageyama still smiles like he might be in pain, there’s an ease in the way the three act that there wasn’t before.

At this, Hajime lets out a small huff of laughter, feeling prouder than he maybe should, and his vice captain, Matsukawa, gives him a strange look. “My middle school kouhai have grown up,” he says, and he can’t help his heart swelling at the prospect of _maybe_ _this time_.

“You didn’t go to one of the powerhouse schools,” Hajime says to Kageyama as he locks the club room up after practice. Kageyama stares at him, as if to say, _well, yes, I_ am _here right now_. “Matsukawa and Hanamaki and I—we saw your last Kita-iichi match,” Hajime clarifies. “We figured that at your level, you were bound for the likes of Shiratorizawa, not Seijou.”

“Shiratorizawa,” Kageyama repeats, incredulous. Hajime studies Kageyama closely, the way he just _halts_ , almost like on the first day they had met. On second glance, Hajime might even dare to say that Kageyama looks—offended? He’s silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to voice what he’s thinking. “We still need to get our revenge, don’t we?” Kageyama says it bluntly, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and Hajime’s stupid for not thinking of it, but he ducks his head like he’s embarrassed.

“Yeah,” Hajime says, an odd feeling settling how in his stomach, “I guess we do. See you tomorrow, Kageyama.”

As he walks home alone, Hajime thinks about the way that Kageyama had turned pink at his admission. _It just doesn’t add up_ , he thinks. They knew each other well enough—they’d already played on a team together, and they’d worked well then, so why would Kageyama get embarrassed now? Then again, this isn’t junior high anymore.

It’s going to be better than junior high, because this time, they’re going to take down Shiratorizawa together.

 

 

 

Finally— _finally_ , thanks to Kageyama and Kunimi and Kindaichi—the Aoba Johsai volleyball club makes it to the finals to battle Shiratorizawa. They defeat the looming giants of Datekou, and it’s the first time that Hajime has played them since junior high and—

And they look more like giants now than ever before.

Even in their warm-ups, they are monstrously good, and there is this _confidence_ that they all have in each other. Truly, they are working as a cohesive unit, a completed circuit, and Hajime has never felt ashamed of his team, would never, but he might be lying if he said he thought they actually had a chance of winning.

“Iwaizumi-san,” Kageyama says to him, tearing Hajime’s gaze from the other side of the net, a burning conviction in his voice that Hajime has never heard before. “We’re going to win today.”

“Yeah,” Hajime says, willing himself to believe it. “We are.”

Soon after, he is called to shake hands with Shiratorizawa’s captain—none other than Oikawa Tooru, the prefecture’s finest. Once again, their eyes meet as Oikawa takes Hajime’s hand in a firm grip, and it’s—it’s just like the first time, when they had made eye contact at the end of Hajime’s last junior high match, and Oikawa’s gaze is electric and it is _familiar_.

Hajime _knows_ it. He can read it in an instant. He knows, instantaneously, that Oikawa doesn’t think Aoba Johsai can beat Shiratorizawa. He knows that, despite this, he has a near-irrational fear of Kageyama. And he knows that this—whatever it is that Hajime’s feeling—is something that Oikawa’s feeling too.

When he walks away, Hajime observes, Oikawa doesn’t have the same flounce in his step as he did before.

 

 

 

Familiar, familiar, familiar—the squeak of volleyball shoes on the gym floor, the feeling in his hand after hitting a spike, Oikawa Tooru’s eyes, the comforting presence of his team and—

Loss.

Even now, Hajime turns away from his team as he cries. Three years—three years of practice, of playing, of trying and trying again for even the _hope_ of going to Nationals—and in an instant he loses to Shiratorizawa. Again. He's their captain, he's their ace—

He should've been able to lead them to victory.

 _Just what kind of ace am I?_ he wants to shout. _What kind of captain am I?_

Hajime can't stop the tears as they come, leaving him raw and empty and exposed, and he turns, away from his team and away from the spectators who have come to see Aoba Johsai play. To face his team right now would be—unbearable, he thinks. He can't face them, not now, not after he's just let them all down.

 _You can't win volleyball alone,_ he had told Kageyama once, back at Kitagawa Daiichi, when his greatest worry had been trying to get his first year kouhai to get along, _That’s why there are six players on the court._

But that's not true, he thinks now, the suffocating weight of his loss on his shoulders. This—this isn't their fault; they fought as hard as they could. But Hajime, Hajime should have practiced longer, fought harder, he should have been _enough_. But he isn’t. He isn’t now, and he never was, and now he never will be—

“Iwaizumi-san.”

Kageyama’s voice cuts through his thoughts, and Hajime wipes his eyes one more time before turning. His setter has his arm extended, as if he had reached out to lay his hand on Hajime’s back in a gesture of comfort but had hesitated. He can see the rest of his team, eyes watching carefully from a distance, and he can see Issei mouth, _It’s okay._

It’s not okay, but Hajime stands tall anyway as he begins walking back to his team.

“Let's go,” he says. “We need to line up.”

 

 

 

 _If only I had made that one spike, that one toss, that one receive_ —that’s what they’re all thinking, Hajime knows. And _god_ , does he know. He’s only spent the entire bus ride home thinking about it, picking apart his brain for _should-have-beens_ —

 _Should-have-beens_ and _could-have beens_ but no _will bes_ , not anymore.

He’s given it his all. He fought while he could. But it’s not enough. Losing at Kitagawa Daiichi was one thing; he had been young, and he wasn’t done growing, and he had a lot to learn. But now—it had been two years straight of losing to Datekou before they could even _think_ of fighting Shiratorizawa, and now—they’ve lost.

“I’m sorry,” Hajime says, unable to look any of them in the eye. Practice—a tearful and aggressive affair with a heavy heart—is over, and, he thinks, so is his time with the team.

He takes a loud, ugly sniff in to try to stop himself from crying before he can say, with as much composure and gratitude that he can muster in combination, “Thank you for these past three years.”

For a moment, they are silent.

Hajime knows that it had been a given that he would be continuing with them to the Spring High tournament. But—this isn’t his fairytale. He’s not the knight that slays the dragon. He’s just Hajime, and he has a different future to think about, one with business calculus and tailored suits and stability, and he can’t afford to chase this dream.

Goodbyes pass Hajime by in a blur of tears and _thank you, captains_ , and before he knows it, he’s handed over the keys to Issei and is walking home, hands stuck in his pockets.

He pauses for a moment, still in the darkness. A wave of disbelief washes over him—he actually did it.

“Iwaizumi-san!”

At this point, Hajime thinks, he would have been surprised if Kageyama hadn’t come after him. He looks at the first-year before him—still learning, still evolving, and surely the object of other teams’ fear.

“I thought—” He cuts himself off, face scrunching for a moment before he continues. “I thought that we were going to get our revenge together.”

Before he can turn around, before he can run back to the team he’s called his home for the past two and a half years, Hajime puts his hand on Kageyama’s shoulder, just like he had on that first day.

“Kick Oikawa’s ass in the Spring High for me, won’t you?” he says.

 

 

 

“I retired from the volleyball club,” Hajime tells his mother, still numb from his decision.

She wraps her arms around him and he can smell jasmine, just like when he was a little boy and she told him stories before bedtime. _Home_ , Hajime thinks. For as much as Seijou had come to be his home, he thinks, he can’t forget the home that is always waiting for him, for his mother’s comforting embrace and his father’s belly laughter when they watch Western comedies together.

“I’m sorry,” she says, pulling him closer, as if he isn’t nearly a head taller than her now.

“It’s okay,” he says.

And then, “I’m okay.”

Still she holds him, and he hugs her as tight as he can, and he inhales the familiar scent of jasmine until the tears have stopped falling. There’s no story she can tell him now to make him feel better; he’s supposed to be the hero of his story, and he couldn’t slay the dragon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2012 — to start fresh**

 

Aoba Johsai’s third years graduate on a perfect day, cool and sunny and reminding Hajime of a scene straight out of the shoujo manga that Hanamaki reads. The three of them volleyball third years take a photo together, smiling in light of their accomplishments and the _freedom_ that comes with graduating high school.

Yet as his old teammates and classmates hug him, punch him on the shoulder, give him well-wishes for the future, Hajime can’t shake the feeling that something’s missing, something crucial, except that he _knows_ he hasn’t forgotten anything and his father got back from his business trip just in time to be there and really, the day has gone perfectly.

He tries to focus on the elaborate joke that Issei has been telling, laughing when Takahiro does in an attempt to act like he’d heard it, though he’s sure his friends know he hadn’t been listening.

“Matsukawa-san, Hanamaki-san,” a familiar voice cuts in from behind Hajime. “May I speak to Iwaizumi-san? Alone?”

Hajime’s best friends exchange an indecipherable look before Takahiro says, “All right, well, we’ll see you tomorrow for ramen, Hajime,” and he and Issei disappear into the sea of graduates and families.

“Hey, Kageyama,” Hajime says, and the discomfort of a conversation that no longer comes as easily as breathing hits him, and he just how much time it’s been since he practiced with the team, since he stood beside them on the court. “I told you, you can just call me Iwaizumi.”

“Right—yes—Iwaizumi,” Kageyama says, and Hajime thinks that it’s been a while since he’s seen the setter so unsure, so stunted and nervous, just as he had been when they’d first met. “I—” He pauses, thrusting a fisted hand toward Hajime, dropping something small into the palm that Hajime extends without thinking. “This is for you.”

For a moment, Hajime wonders why his teammate would be giving him a _button_.

But then he sees that it’s a button from the school-issued uniforms, and the second button of Kageyama’s blazer is gone, and that’s something that’s supposed to happen only in Yahaba’s shoujo manga, but then, _oh_ , and all of a sudden Hajime remembers back when Kageyama turned bright pink had told him he had come to Seijou so that they could get their revenge against Shiratorizawa together, the way that after Hajime had reached out to him in his first year at Kitagawa Daiichi, it had always been Kagayama reaching out to _Hajime_ , but never quite close enough, always reaching, _reaching_ —

The pieces of the puzzle fall together all at once, and it feels like someone has yanked the ground out from beneath Hajime’s feet.

All this time, he had never even considered—it had never even crossed his mind that Kageyama had seen him as anything more than a teammate, a mentor, a brother—and Hajime remembers the times he’d ruffled Kageyama’s hair fondly, the way he’d punch him on the arm lightly enough to not inflict any real damage, the way that Issei and Takahiro had always shared that secretive look whenever Kageyama had offered to help clean up before anyone else.

Oh, Hajime thinks.

 _Oh_.

Kageyama is still standing there, turning redder by the second, and Hajime has no idea what you’re supposed to say when someone confesses to you and you want to reject them—not that he wants to _reject_ Kageyama, he just doesn’t want to lead him on, and—

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Still beet-red, Kageyama doesn’t look surprised in the slightest. “It’s okay,” he says, as if he had expected this. “I know.”

Hajime doesn’t have time to reply before Kageyama launches into a violent bow, with a stiff-sounding, “Thank you, Iwaizumi-san!” and disappears into the masses without another word.

Hajime’s fingers close around the button.

 _I’m sorry_.

 

 

 

“I don’t _understand_ ,” Sawamura says one night when they’re both studying, and Hajime shoots him an unimpressed look from behind the textbook he’s currently highlighting.

“It’s calculus,” he says. “You’re not supposed to understand it.”

Sawamura groans, slamming the book closed before flopping back onto his bed. They lapse into a comfortable silence before Sawamura says, “You didn’t tell me you used to play volleyball.”

“Huh?” Hajime doesn’t bother looking up from his textbook, only half-listening to his roommate as he tries to figure out how to highlight the things he doesn't know without highlighting the entire section.

“The team picture,” he says, gesturing to the one taped to the wall next to the _Explore!: Tokyo_ wall calendar that his father had gotten for free.

“Oh,” Hajime says, looking up despite knowing exactly what photo Sawamura is talking about. And then, feeling a petty sort of defensiveness, “We’ve been roommates for two months and you’ve just _now_ noticed that?”

“Excuse me for not prying into my roommate’s personal belongings,” Sawamura says good-humoredly, and Hajime tells himself to let down the walls he put up after retiring from the volleyball club. “What position did you play?”

“Wing spiker,” Hajime says, and despite the fact that he hasn’t even touched a volleyball in months, it feels _right_ on his tongue. “And captain, I guess. But I retired after the inter-high tournament third year.”

“Huh,” Sawamura says, looking far too contemplative for a conversation about high school sports. “I wonder if our teams ever played each other.”

Hajime scoffs. “Doubtful. We always lost to Datekou, and the one time we did beat them—well, no one could ever get past Shiratorizawa.”

“Yeah. I get it,” Sawamura says, a wistful note in his tone, and Hajime knows that yeah, Sawamura really _does_ get it.. “Shiratorizawa was—they really were something else.”

Hajime thinks back to Oikawa, that feeling of deja vu when they had shaken hands. The way that Oikawa’s hand had fit perfectly with his, like an old friend’s. The way that he somehow had known Oikawa forever, despite the fact that they had never met. The way— _no_ , Hajime tells himself. It’s unimportant, and he’ll probably never see Oikawa again, anyway.

“They were,” he agrees.

 

 

 

 

 

**2016 — to get into grad school**

 

 _Hajime_ , his parents had said, when he had called them after receiving their urgent voicemail. Hajime had already known that whatever it was that they had to call him about. couldn’t possibly be good news; the tone in which his mother said his name was an apology without saying as much.

 _Cancer_ , they had said, and even now, the word rings in Hajime’s ears. He thinks that it might never stop. All he knows is that he might _lose_ his mother, and—he wills himself to take a deep breath. He reminds himself that, according to the oncologist, Okaasan has a good chance of survival. He just needs to breathe, and be glad that he’s moved home, glad that he’s with Okaasan, even if it’s to possibly spend the rest of his time with her at home, even if there wasn't the cancer, or if he’d gotten into that program.

 _Breathe,_ Hajime tells himself.

He tries not to think too much as he settles back into his childhood bedroom, tries not to think about his mother sitting by his side, close enough to smell jasmine, stroking his hair, telling him bedtime stories—no, he tries his best to not think of these things as he hangs his jackets and folds his shirts and arranges old textbooks by his desk.

Everything in the room is perfectly clean—dusted, his bed made, everything in the exact spot he left it, the movie posters on his wall straightened out, with the corners no longer peeling off—in anticipation of his arrival and it makes Hajime’s heart ache. And—yeah. _Yeah_ , he thinks, with more conviction, it’s okay that he’s not headed straight into a good job from an internship and moving in with a high school sweetheart like Sawamura is, it’s okay that he wasn’t accepted into that sports medicine program in Tokyo, even if he isn't Olympics-bound like Oikawa Tooru, _hometown hero_. It's okay. He's okay. This is where he needs to be, and this is where he’ll be happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2020 — for Okaasan’s new treatment to work**

 

Five years ago, if someone had told Hajime that he would be working as the manager of a Yamazawa supermarket, he would have told them that they were crazy. But now, he can’t really complain—it’s a good job, a practical one, and okay, maybe he’s not an Olympic trainer like he’d always wanted to be, but he _is_ also coaching Aoba Johsai’s newly-formed girls’ volleyball club in his time away from the store.

He’s checking out a customer when a flurry of rapid talking and excitement comes from the television, and he and the customer both look up to see what’s causing the commotion. On the TV display, Hajime sees medics rushing onto the volleyball court, and then they show a replay, and Hajime watches as, in slow motion, second-time Olympian Oikawa Tooru falls to the floor, clutching his knee in pain.

 _He injured his right knee in high school,_ they say.

 _Overcompensation in his left knee,_ they say.

 _Substituting setter, Kageyama Tobio,_ they say.

Hajime can hardly hear any of it, though, because his head is spinning and the sudden wave of _compassion_ he feels for Oikawa Tooru is overwhelming, and he’s never even properly met the guy. It’s physically hurts, and by the time he snaps out of it to face the customer again, she’s one tap away on her cell phone from calling the paramedics.

“Are you alright?” she asks him, phone still ready to dial.

“Yeah,” he says, forcing a little smile. “Just a headache is all.”

She looks skeptical, but puts her phone away and swipes her card. After she takes her groceries, after she’s out the door, Hajime can feel the lingering feeling, the phantom pain in a knee he’s never injured.

He’s reminded of his second year of high school, when his right knee had given out randomly, and chalks it up to nothing important. It’s nothing to worry about, he tells himself, but even as the pain in his knee fades, he remains on edge for the rest of the day, anxiety and desperation and emotional pain almost too much for him to handle. He chokes out words that should come easily, swallows heavily when nothing’s gone wrong, and he doesn’t _understand_.

 _But_ , he thinks as he raises his glass of sake to his lips, he still doesn’t understand a lot of things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 **2021 —** **please, _please_ just give me more time with Okaasan**

 

 _Magical_ , Hajime’s mother had told him twenty years ago, the first time she had taken him to the Sendai Tanabata festival. And magical it had been, to a boy only seven years old who had seen lanterns and colors and wishes on the branches and people celebrating the greatest love story he had ever heard of.

Now, it seems much less magical, but he makes his way about the festival anyway. He sees a little girl stick her tongue out in concentration as she tries to make the handwriting on her tanzaku perfect, and, he amends, maybe it still can be magical.

It had better be magical, Hajime thinks, more than a little bit desperately, because it’s going to take some real magic to change _two months_ into two years, two decades, whatever makes a full lifetime.

 _More time_ is the only thing on Hajime’s mind, and really, he thought it would be easier than it is. Instead he stands there, with a pen in hand and his own tanzaku in the other, trying his best not to cry as he writes.

 _Please_ , he writes. _Please_ again—and then he underlines it for good measure, just because he could use any extra dose of magic here. _Just give me more time with Okaasan_.

He can think of tanzaku he’s written in the past, of bug-catching nets and dreams of nationals and graduate schools and all the other wishes that have come true and the ones that haven’t, and all of them seem small. The butterfly net when he was seven. The baseball glove when he was nine. A new game console when he was thirteen. A trip to Okinawa when he was nineteen. He had been so excited when he’d gotten them, when his wishes had come true. But now, as his handwriting grows more and more shaky, he wishes he could trade all of them for another decade, another year, another month, another _day_ than what he’s been given.

He finishes, holding up the strip of paper to survey his handiwork. It’s a sad little thing, and he’s pretty sure the five-year-old girl he saw earlier had better handwriting than him, and he’s crying, but it’s there. It’s done. He takes a deep breath, swallows the lump in his throat, and fastens the tanzaku to the tree.

He’s about to turn, walk back to his car, make it back home in time for dinner with his parents, but a lost tanzaku flutters past him, and he steps on it to catch it before picking it up.

 _Please_ , it says, _please let me play, even if it’s just one more time._

Hajime can feel a familiar ache, one that he can’t quite place, as he reads the words once, again in an attempt to figure out what the context of this might be, and then turns it over, feeling like he’s just read something incredibly private.

“Hey!” someone calls out, and Hajime turns to see the source of the voice.

It’s a man, and Hajime would guess him to be around his own age, but he’s not entirely sure because the guy _is_ hobbling over with a cane, other arm flailing wildly as he tries to quicken his pace. He can’t make out his face, either, what with the oversized sunglasses, star-patterned flu mask, and _Rakuten Eagles_ cap.

“Is this yours?” Hajime says, meeting the guy the rest of the way, as if it’s really a question.

“Yeah,” he says, and there’s something small and sad about the way he says it. “Yeah!” he repeats, cheery and confident this time, and he pulls down the flu mask to reveal a winning smile. He plucks the tanzaku out of Hajime’s hand. “Thanks for catching it for me,” he says, flashing Hajime a peace sign.

There’s something _so familiar_ about the voice, the peace sign, someone so far on the edges of Hajime’s memory that he might be an old classmate, a coworker, a character from a manga series Hajime read when he was in junior high. He glances down and sees the knee brace, though, and the pieces click into place.

“Oikawa Tooru?” he says, uncertain.

The smile falls instantaneously from the other man’s face. “Yeah,” he says, and then, with a sneer, “what gave me away? Was it the cane, or the brace? Or do I just look like a national embarrassment by nature?”

“No!” Hajime says, a little too hastily. “No,” he repeats. “We… my team played yours in high school. I went to Aoba Johsai,” he adds.

Oikawa lowers his bug-eyed sunglasses, and his nose scrunches in thought. His eyes widen, then, and he asks, “It’s you, isn’t it?” He says it reverently, like a prayer; he says it like everything makes sense all of a sudden—because it _does_.

It hits Hajime at once, a wave of familiarity and deja vu and missed opportunities and almost-weres, could-have-beens, chances from years, lifetimes, millennia, and everything makes _sense_.

“It’s me,” Hajime says, and he’s smiling until his lips strain a little bit, because he’s never felt so much relief and joy and _love_ , and, when he sees a similar expression on Oikawa’s face, he thinks that maybe, magical things _can_ happen when the stars are aligned.

 

 

 

 

_If to burn with love_

_Were the same thing as to die,_

_Long before now_

_A thousand times I would have died—_

_A thousand times over._

**Author's Note:**

> The poem used is from the Manyoshu.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please come and say hi to me on Twitter @[chineseporkbun](http://twitter.com/chineseporkbun) c:


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